Tara Strong
| birth_place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada | citizenship = Canadian, American | occupation = Voice actress, actress | years_active = 1986–present | residence = Los Angeles County, California | spouse = | children = 2 | parents = Syd Charendoff Lucy Charendoff | relatives = Marla Charendoff (sister) }} Tara Lyn Strong (née Charendoff; born February 12, 1973) is a Canadian-American actress who has provided voice-over work for animation and video games and has performed in live-action. Her roles include animated series such as Rugrats, The Powerpuff Girls, The Fairly OddParents, Teen Titans, Xiaolin Showdown, Ben 10, Chowder, Wow Wow Wubbzy!, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Unikitty!, and DC Super Hero Girls and video games such as Mortal Kombat X, Jak and Daxter, Final Fantasy X and X-2 and Batman: Arkham. She has earned Annie Award and Daytime Emmy nominations and won an award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. Early life Strong was born on February 12, 1973, in Toronto, Ontario, to Syd and Lucy Charendoff. Her family, Jews who lived in Russia, had immigrated to Canada after escaping the Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire. Tara and her older sister Marla were raised in Toronto. At age four, she became interested in acting and volunteered to be a soloist at a school production. She worked with the Yiddish Theater; though she did not know the Yiddish language, she memorized her lines phonetically. She also performed with the Toronto Jewish Theater (TJA), where she acted in A Night of Stars and was featured in an audiotape for "Lay Down Your Arms" with the Habonim Youth Choir, where she sang the lyrics in both English and Hebrew. Her first professional role was Gracie in Limelight Theater's production of The Music Man at age 13. She had a guest role in the action series T. and T. Her first major cartoon role was the title role in Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater. She starred in the short-lived CBC Television sitcom Mosquito Lake. She took improv classes at The Second City in Toronto and continued acting in both animated and live-action shows and films, before moving to Los Angeles in January 1994. Acting and voice-over career Strong is the voice of numerous animated characters, including main roles in Fillmore! as Ingrid Third; The Fairly OddParents as Timmy Turner and Poof; Rugrats and All Grown Up! as Dil Pickles; The Powerpuff Girls as Bubbles; Ben 10 as Ben Tennyson, Upgrade, Blitzwolfer, and Buzzshock; Chowder as Truffles; Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! as Raven; Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends as Terrence; the singing voice of Meg Griffin and additional voices on Family Guy; My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic as Twilight Sparkle, Unikitty! as Princess Unikitty, Wow Wow Wubbzy! as Daizy, and Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz as Joanni. She has also lent her voice to English-language localizations of Japanese anime such as Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, as well as several video games, including her work as Elisa and Ursula in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops; Paz Ortega Andrade in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; Rikku in Final Fantasy X, its sequel Final Fantasy X-2, and Kingdom Hearts II; Talwyn Apogee in Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction and its sequel, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty; Kiera in Jak and Daxter series; Harley Quinn in Batman: Arkham City, replacing Arleen Sorkin from the franchise; and Juliet Starling, the main character of Lollipop Chainsaw. She also has a minor voiceover for the Teddy Bear; Ted in the motion picture Ted. She has appeared in live roles in National Lampoon's Senior Trip, Sabrina Goes to Rome, Sabrina Down Under, and The Last White Dishwasher. She also made guest appearances on such shows as Forever Knight, Street Legal, Touched by an Angel, Take Home Chef, Party of Five, Comic Book: The Movie, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and 3rd Rock from the Sun. In January 2013, she voiced the character Plum in Cartoon Hangover's Bravest Warriors, created by Pendleton Ward. She has the role of the character Miss Collins in Nickelodeon's live-action series Big Time Rush. In 2004, she won an Interactive Achievement Award for her role as Rikku in Final Fantasy X-2. She also served as the announcer for the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards, appeared as a guest panelist at several fan conventions (including BotCon, Jacon, Comic-Con International, and Anime Overdose), and was featured on the front cover of the July/August 2004 issue of Working Mother magazine, in which she said, "My son is now old enough to respond to my work. To me, that's what it is all about." Strong has been nominated five times for Annie Awards. In 2013, Strong won the Shorty Award for "Best #Actress" for her use of social media. The Behind the Voice Actors website selected her for a BTVA Voice Acting Award for Voice Actress of the Year for 2013, and nominated her for the 2011 and 2012 years. Personal life In 1999, she met Craig Strong, an American former actor turned real estate agent; they were married on May 14, 2000. They have two sons: Sammy (born February 2002) and Aden (born August 2004). Their family resides in Los Angeles, where they run VoiceStarz, an Internet-based company that teaches people how to get into the voice-over business. She has citizenship in both Canada and the United States. Strong and her husband developed and patented a line of baby bottles with caps that their user can set to note the calendar date for breast milk storage. Strong was the roommate of actress Neve Campbell. They both auditioned for the role of Julia in the 1990s TV series Party of Five, and Campbell ultimately won the role. Strong did appear in one episode playing Lorna. She was involved with a charity group called Bronies for Good where she helped raise funds for a family whose daughter had a brain tumor. In 2012, during the BronyCon event in New Jersey, she attended a lunch with fans from the military. In regards to religion, Strong is Jewish. She is also a vegan. In October 2018, Tara Strong posted a #MeToo tweet stating that she was molested in Toronto when she was 5 years old in 1978. References Citations }} Sources * }} * | title = The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present |edition=9th | author-first1=Tim |author-last1=Brooks | authorlink1 = Tim Brooks (television historian) | author-first2=Earle F. | author-last2=Marsh | isbn = 9780307483201 | publisher = Random House Publishing Group | year = 2009 }} * | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=YX_daEhlnbsC | title = Encyclopedia of Television Shows, 1925 through 2010 | edition=2d | first=Vincent |last=Terrace | isbn = 9780786486410 | publisher = McFarland | year = 2008 }} * | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=71GuAwAAQBAJ | title = Internet Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Television Series, 1998–2013 | first=Vincent | last=Terrace | publisher = McFarland | isbn = 9781476616452 | year=2014 }} * | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aa0zAwAAQBAJ | title = America Toons In: A History of Television Animation | first =David |last=Perlmutter | publisher = McFarland | year = 2014 | isbn = 9781476614885 }} External links * * – Tara Strong's voice acting company * * Tara Strong at Behind The Voice Actors Category:1973 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century American actresses Category:20th-century Canadian actresses Category:21st-century American actresses Category:21st-century Canadian actresses Category:American voice actresses Category:American film actresses Category:American television actresses Category:American video game actresses Category:Canadian voice actresses Category:Canadian child actresses Category:Canadian film actresses Category:Canadian stage actresses Category:Canadian television actresses Category:Canadian video game actresses Category:Jewish Canadian actresses Category:Interactive Achievement Award winners Category:Actresses from Toronto Category:Canadian expatriate actresses in the United States Category:Cartoon Network people